Guest Editorial: Texas allows too many vaccination exemptions

San Antonio Express-News

Published
1:30 am CDT, Wednesday, May 4, 2016

In this Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015, photo, boxes of single-doses vials of the measles-mumps-rubella virus vaccine live, or MMR vaccine and ProQuad vaccine are keep frozen inside a freezer at the practice of Dr. Charles Goodman in Northridge, Calif.

In this Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015, photo, boxes of single-doses vials of the measles-mumps-rubella virus vaccine live, or MMR vaccine and ProQuad vaccine are keep frozen inside a freezer at the practice of Dr.

In this Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015, photo, boxes of single-doses vials of the measles-mumps-rubella virus vaccine live, or MMR vaccine and ProQuad vaccine are keep frozen inside a freezer at the practice of Dr. Charles Goodman in Northridge, Calif.

In this Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015, photo, boxes of single-doses vials of the measles-mumps-rubella virus vaccine live, or MMR vaccine and ProQuad vaccine are keep frozen inside a freezer at the practice of Dr.

The growing number of school-age children in Texas whose parents have opted out of having them vaccinated is alarming.

One-third of Texans ages 19 months to 35 months did not receive their full series of child vaccinations in 2014, ranking Texas the second to bottom among the states on vaccination rates for young children.

State records also indicate that in that same year, there were 38,197 school children whose parent requested their children be exempt from vaccinations based on religious and personal beliefs.

In Bexar County, the number of vaccination exemptions filed with school officials has more than doubled over the past five years, Express-News Staff Writer Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje reports. During the 2014 school year, the parents of more than 1,850 children in our community filed affidavits seeking the exemption.

Why? There are fears that immunizations pose dangers, distrust of pharmaceutical companies and government agencies, and the belief that the diseases the vaccines target no longer exist or present only a minor threat. And other parents staunchly believe they should be the sole decision-makers when it comes to their children’s health.

Much of the public distrust of vaccinations came following the release in 1998 of a study by a British gastroenterologist who now lives in Austin, linking the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, commonly referred to as MMR, to autism. Andrew Wakefield’s work was discredited and he lost his medical license, but the fallout continues.

Some states are enacting laws to reduce the number of parents opting out of immunizing their children. Last year, California passed a law that goes into effect this summer that eliminates vaccination exemptions based on religious and personal beliefs. New York has a similar law that has withstood court challenges.

Attempts at this in Texas last legislative session gave rise to Texans for Vaccine Choice, a political action committee that fought hard to defeat the measure. After successfully killing the bill, the group went after its author, Rep. Jason Villalba, D-Dallas, in the primary earlier this year.

Villalba won a hard-fought battle for his party’s nomination and told the Austin American-Statesman he has no plans to bring up the bill again. That’s regrettable. The Legislature should reprise the measure.

Immunizations save lives. Children who are not immunized present a threat to others. No one lives in a vacuum. Scientific data show that vaccines are safe and effective.

It is ironic that at a time when public concern is high about how to provide protection from the Zika virus, we are failing to take full advantage of the resources readily available to keep potentially life-threatening childhood diseases at bay.